Worlds Away and Worlds Aweird

by James Hartley

  I held up my staff as a shield against the heat of the inferno and watched it burn. The man, presumably the teamster who had been driving it, stopped at a safe distance and began to curse at me. His vocabulary of profanity and insult was magnificent, and I stood listening in admiration until he finally began to repeat himself and I cast a spell of silence upon him.

  With the roar of the flames diminishing and the teamster suddenly silent, I heard the sound of footsteps and turned to see a small crowd approaching, led by one who was obviously the liege leader of these men, a smoking cheroot clamped between his lips and fire blazing in his eyes.

  “Wotinell ya thinker doon, ya suvabish?” he yelled at me.

  Obviously from some foreign land where they knew naught of the English tongue, but I answered in courtly fashion, hoping he might puzzle out my words. “Good morrow, noble sir.” Not that I truly thought him noble, of course, but I felt perhaps courtesy were politic here. “I hight Eudoric, Master in the Wizards Guild, brought to your land by a strange enchantment.” I thought it were better not to mention my defeat by the Black Enchanter, not to reveal weakness.

  “Wizard? Wotinell ya mean, thinkya Harry Potter, ain’t no such thingsa fuggin wizard, dammit!” The man was clearly upset, getting red in the face and sputtering. Suddenly he clasped his hand to his breast and fell to the ground.

  Several of those around him knelt down to look at him more closely, and one or two said something that sounded like “heart attack.” English words, true, but still arrant nonsense. I checked his aura and saw that he was on the cusp of death. Not of my doing of course. However by aiding in this crisis, I might earn some respect and better treatment from his troop. I took my cue from their word “heart” and cast a healing spell, Corasionis Integris Imperatix! Immediately his breathing eased, his face paled to a more normal hue, and he stopped clutching at his chest.

  Things were getting out of hand here. Several chariots with flashing red lights arrived and disgorged what I presumed were shire-reeves in blue. A much larger wain, also with red lights, stopped and two men in white with the sigils of healers on their arms emerged and went to the man on the ground. Here was there a great argument, those already there continuing to say the one on the ground had a “heart attack”—there was that phrase again—while the healers cast their charms and said the man was hale and well.

  Of course he was, or my healing spell had been ill-cast! I thought to tell the healers of my spell, but now the shire-reeves were beginning to notice me and move in my direction, hostile looks in their eyes. Normally the robes of a Master of the Wizards Guild would command respect, but in this strange time and place, it appeared otherwise. A quick charm of confounding left me invisible to them and free to walk away. Or more to the point, to commandeer one of the red-lit chariots and with a quick spell on its mechanick controls, to fly away back down the road a-building toward the distantly seen city from whence the shire-reeves and healers had come.

  A month passed, and I had established myself on a luxurious estate. Prepared as I was to conjure up gold, I had no need of it, but rather piles of strange oblongs of paper were allowed to serve as money here and now, and they were much easier to conjure than gold. I detected no trace of real magic in this world, even though there was much talk of it—a teenaged wizard named Harry Potter, three Wiccan sisters called the Charmed Ones—but this was all considered fantasy. I had free rein with my magic, no opposition evinced itself.

  But my slowly improving memory had brought me one immense sorrow—Luthinda, my wife and apprentice, was not with me. She had not been there for my final battle and defeat by the Black Enchanter, or no doubt some trace would have remained in the cave where I awoke. It would have given me great joy to find she too had been placed in a trance, but she might also have been killed, leaving her bones for me to find. Neither was the case here. So many years had passed, I could only assume she had lived on a widow and eventually died. Still, I could but continue to search for any sign of my lost Luthinda.

  Then one morning I awoke and remembered! There was a secret pocket in my cloak in which certain treasures were placed, including a lock of Luthinda’s flame-red hair! With this I could scry for her location, or at least the location of her grave. The latter would grieve me much, but it would at least give closure. I quickly made preparations, including the purchase of many maps, for there was no way to know if I needed to look near or far away. One or two strands of hair would suffice for the scrying, but if I failed for want of the right map and had to try again, the supply would soon be gone.

  It was well I took the precautions, for the crystal led me across several maps to a city a thousand leagues distant, and on the final map seemed to point to something called a “Museum,” a place wherein are stored historical treasures and relics of antiquity. A strange destination, but still it gave me more hope than had it been a graveyard. I would need some form of transportation to travel that great distance, so I enchanted the carpet from one room of my mansion with a flying spell. I then prepared a bag of tools and supplies and a little food, loaded it on my carpet, and took off.

  A thousand leagues direct to Luthinda’s resting place and naught to trouble me. Wrong! This was my first carpet flight since my awakening, and I soon discovered to my horror that these people not only made much use of air travel, but also hedged it about with all manner of arcane and obscure laws. No magic carpets here, rather mechanick contraptions shaped like giant fish with broad flat unmoving fins stuck out to either side. Some smaller ones seemed to hold three or four people, others were a large as a whale and swallowed a small army before they took to the skies! And fast, they were incredibly fast. Not far from home I almost ran into one that was rising from the ground, but most went much higher than I flew, for which I gave much thanks.

  Far worse occurred when I unknowingly passed over some holy shrine or otherwise taboo place. Suddenly I was being pursued by a whole fleet of their mechanick flying engines. Have I mentioned a thing they call a “gun”? These are weapons that throw little bits of metal, but so fast they can cause injury or death. Most unknightly, unchivalrous, even dishonorable! The flying engines chasing me were equipped with these “guns,” and they were using them, not to hit me apparently, but seemingly to force me back and down, to make me land at the very taboo spot itself. Mayhap they intended me to be a sacrifice to the gods to whom the shrine was dedicated.

  Fortunately I was able to cast a spell of invisibility and maneuver my carpet to get away from the flying machines. But since it was impossible to predict when another shrine or taboo area might be encountered, I was forced to remain invisible for the rest of the trip.

  I reached the city of my goal, a huge city built on an island between two rivers, with towers that scraped the clouds, and surrounded by many miles of only slightly lower and less impressive buildings. As I flew lower, I could see that all the roads, arranged in a very unaesthetic pattern of right angles, were filled to the brim with mechanick wains and chariots like those I had seen before. Their behavior was very strange. For a time they would rush ahead heedless of the crossing roads, then suddenly all would stop and those on the crossing roads would dart ahead.

  I could see no safe way of landing my carpet on those roads, but fortunately there was a great oblong of greensward in the middle of the city. It too had roads running through it, but there were large areas of lawn and I chose a smooth spot. Once I had landed, I removed the invisibility spell, and none too soon. I was fearsome tired, for such a spell drains one. I was near a bench so I sat down and drew out my map. Once again I was lucky, the “Museum” I sought was right at the western border of the vast greensward.

  My trip had taken much time, and when I arrived at the Museum, it was closed. No matter. I found an entrance that was mostly out of sight, and a simple spell unlocked the door. Once inside I saw this would be no easy task, the building was huge and filled with all manner of arcane objects. I traipsed around at random for a while, until I got back to th
e main doors, where I should have entered, had it been open. There was a set of large maps of all the floors so those wishing to see something special would know where to go. I decided to take a chance and use up another precious strand of Luthinda’s hair to scry again.

  The crystal pointed me to a small room on the top floor labeled “Medieval Exhibit” and I headed thereto. Again I was facing a locked door, but the opening spell made short work of the barrier. I was in the very room with Luthinda…or whatever was left of her. I looked carefully around. I raised my staff and cast a finding spell. The staff dragged me across the floor to a cluster of statues and came to a stop pointing to a life-sized bronze of a woman. The finery was of a sort one would seldom, or never, see Luthinda wearing, for she was never much the grand lady, but instead a hoyden, a tomboy. Although I must say that the almost sexless doublet and tights she usually wore could never conceal that she was female. Here the high fashion gown, very low cut, revealed generous amounts of what this era calls “cleavage,” something Luthinda was well equipped with.

  I looked at the face of the statue. Yes, the resemblance was very good, this could be an image of Luthinda. I unpacked tools from my bag and began to test the statue. Slowly, slowly, it began to dawn on me that it was Luthinda herself, preserved inside the statue by some sort of spell. I toiled while the hands of the clock spun away the night, and as dawn was breaking, I tapped on the statue with my staff. The bronze fell apart, and there was my Luthinda. I grabbed her and kissed her, and she kissed back with her usual enthusiasm. I gathered up my tools and repacked my bag, and we made our way out of the Museum and into the greensward where we sat on a bench and talked.

  “After you left to fight with the Black Enchanter, Eudoric,” she told me, “when you returned not, I undertook a vision quest. I saw you sealed in a cave, although the spirit guide could not tell where on the face of the Earth it might be. I saw years, decades, centuries pass, and I saw you awake in a future so strange it made an opium dream sensible and commonplace. I knew then what I had to do. I recruited the aid of a friendly coven of witches to supplement my own powers, and together we cast the spell to freeze me into the statue to wait through the long eons.” She paused for a moment. “But, my darling, I could find no one to ask who had actually ridden through the years in such fashion. Hence, one aspect of the spell and its journey were unknown to me. I did not know that I would be awake and aware of my surroundings, all through that long wait.”

  “Oh, my dear Luthinda,” I cried, “How you must have suffered. My poor girl!”

  “Nay, it were not so bad. Nights, or when I was in a storage chamber, I reviewed my magic. I have long since committed all our spellbooks and grimoires to memory, perfect recall being one of the odd talents I was born with.”

  Somehow she had neglected to tell me of this talent, and I resolved to ask her—tactfully, of course—what other “odd talents” she possessed.

  “And times when people were around me and talked, I learned much about how the world was changing as the years advanced. I reckon I may know more about this time than you have managed to learn since you awoke.”

  We spent hours catching up. Finally, as more people were about, and many gave us strange looks, she said, “I must get out of this costume, appropriate for a Medieval statue, but certainly not for the streets of this city. And by the by, love, perhaps you would do well to exchange the robes of the Wizards Guild for something less conspicuous.”

  I went along with her, although, while she simply discarded the gown after she had new garb, I did buy a sort of traveling bag and kept my Wizard’s robes.

  When we were properly clad she asked, “How did you get to this city?”

  I told her of my adventures on the flying carpet, and said, “We need only to go into the greensward to find a place to launch the carpet for the ride back to my estate.”

  Luthinda got one of her exasperated looks and said, “No way am I going to dodge jet liners and fighter squadrons all the way to the west coast on that thing. We are going first class on a seven forty-seven!”

  I was not quite sure what she was saying, she seemed to have assumed the patois of this century too well for my comfort in understanding it. But I knew my Luthinda. When she got in that mood it were best to just go along with her.

  Meanwhile, she drew her wand and muttered what I recognized as a “pickpocket” spell. Lord knows where she learned it, I certainly never taught it to her. In her hands appeared two small flat objects, each with a picture and lettering—fine small letters, obviously done by a master copyist.

  “Now, my darling,” she said, “these are called ‘photo-IDs.’ I just need you to enchant them to show our names and pictures in place of those now there, so we can get through airport security.”

  Once again she was speaking something that might have been English. While she turned toward the road and began chanting a spell I knew not, Taxi-taxi, I pulled out my wand to enchant the devices as she requested, a trivial task. I carefully suppressed the thought that she was having me do this rather than doing it herself just to make me feel needed. In this strange new world in which we found ourselves, I was beginning to wonder which of us was the wizard and which the apprentice…

  Too Damn Cold!

  [Brrrrr!!!]

  PRIA STOOD IN THE DOORWAY with Jaso staring at her, her entire body covered with a loose second skin, rippling in the chill breeze that blew in past her. By now she was used to the sight of people wearing clothes, but she realized that he had probably never seen a woman with her body covered before, at least not an adult woman.

  She asked, “Aren’t you going to let me in, Daddy? It’s cold out here, and you’re letting all the cold air into the house.” She turned sideways and slid in between him and the door frame until she was behind him. “Now close the door, but you can keep your back turned until I’m—” she hesitated, groping for a word “—ready.”

  He quickly shut the door after her, and then stood there facing it, still shivering a bit. Behind him he heard strange rustling noises. Finally Pria said, “Ready!” and when he turned to face her she was decently naked. She grabbed hold of his arms and gave him a quick little kiss on the cheek, just as she always had since she was a little girl. Jaso led his daughter into the living room.

  Pria looked around the room. She hadn’t been here in a year, and it was obvious that she could see the changes. Her glance rested on the boarded-over garden doors and on the potbelly stove in the corner. She shook her head as she realized just how much had changed.

  “Well, how are things at the University?” Jaso asked. “Other than, of course, this strange custom of body coverings. That I don’t think I want to hear about.”

  “If I leave that out, I can’t tell you much. That’s the main reason I came, that and the Cold. I belong to a group that is working on the problem of the Cold and what to do about it. The, ah, body coverings, what we call clothes, are an important part of the solution. The Cold is getting worse. We must wear clothes to survive.”

  “But what about the Temple, and old Archo, the Chief Templar? He’s a strict Literalist, and would consider your ‘clothes’ to be a violation of the Laws. And speaking of the Temple, how did you get here without being arrested by the Proctors?”

  “Getting here was no problem. All the Proctors are staying indoors because it’s too cold. Around the Temple a few are out on patrol, but we just avoid that area. And Archo, well, he knows that something is going on. One of our group got into the closed stacks of the University Library and stole a book, but she left some traces…”

  Trip date 431.214, Emergency Captain Jenner. For the entire week since we were awakened by the alarm system, Dr. Pointe has been working with the computer to figure out what happened, and he finally succeeded. It was so improbable that the computer barely detected the problem, and had trouble reporting it. Our destination star has gone nova. Our 97% chance of a habitable planet based on the robot probes has become 0% chance. We went up to the nose
of the ship and we could see it easily, dead ahead. It was far brighter than anything else in the heavens. What are we going to do?

  Trip date 431.360, Emergency Captain Jenner. We have a new destination. It only has a 62% probability of a habitable planet, according to Dr. Pointe, but it was remarkable we found anything. Our lateral thrusters are too weak to give us more than a narrow cone of space. From that we must subtract an inner cone, the “shadow” of the nova, as we can’t pass too close and survive. The coldsleep units were designed for the 500 year trip with only 20% margin, so we can’t stretch our original 50 light years much past 60. And yet we found a star, right at the edge of those limits. Somebody was on our side.

  Dr. Pointe says the new star is an irregular variable, the kind that drops in intensity at odd intervals. All our records show it with only small variations and short drops in intensity. If there is a habitable planet, the short changes will be almost undetectable. If a longer drop occurs…well, we will just have to hope it won’t happen until the colonists are established enough to get through it.

  We are changing course for the new destination, which I have named “Pointe.”

  Trip date 432.009, Emergency Captain Jenner. We are now on course for the variable star that is our new destination. ETA, 160 years. Pointe has returned to coldsleep and appears to be stable, in spite of the known hazards of resuming sleep once awakened. I am about to re-enter coldsleep myself. I am now turning command of the ship over to the computer.

  It was closing time for the University Library, and Pria had hidden in a small closet near the Closed Stacks. She was sure no one had seen her. Yuri and several others had stayed until just closing, then left in a bunch, figuring the guards wouldn’t notice when Yuri signed Pria out along with herself.